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I know I'm coming in a little late to this. I would suggest that playing something poorly would be less professional than dropping the piece.

That said, I don't think this is impossible to learn in two months. I hear you are proficient at Rachmaninoff, though I have never had the pleasure of hearing you play any. I learned Rachmaninoff's 2nd piano concerto in 2 months. Bottom line: you can do this.

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Mark_C
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Registered: 11/11/09
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Loc: New York

Originally Posted By: debrucey

...by 'learned' the coda all I mean is a can sit down and play the coda with a reasonable amount of fluency (if a little undertempo) from memory.

The reason this is an important thing for me is because getting a piece to that stage is the thing I stress about the most. Once the notes are 'learned' all of the work that then must happen to make it a polished performance, while it will certainly take a long time, doesn't frighten me.

Fine -- but yes, "long time" -- which I would have thought could mean a lot more than 2 months.

Quote:

'Considered by all' ?A lot of pianists I know have told me that they don't consider it to be as difficult as people think....

IMO they're just wrong.Sorry.

And BTW my guess would be that "a lot" is a bit of hyperbole. You sure you don't mean just 1 or 2 people that you happened to have come across? (Because I'm very, very confident that it's an extreme minority view. Unless y'all are talking about playing it not necessarily very well, or quite superficially, in which case just about anything isn't that hard.)

Anyway....obviously you're quite determined to press on with the Ballade. Good luck -- maybe you can pull it off quite well; a lot of people here seem to think you can. But from how you presented it in the original post, IMO it sounds way too iffy.

Good luck with your recital, Debrucey! Your YouTube recordings are terrific, and I am sure you can do an excellent job with the 4th ballade. You are shooting for a very ambitious deadline, though.

Originally Posted By: debrucey

Yes I've already submitted the programme. I could change it I suppose, but I would still have to learn 12 minutes of something else. Also I need the Ballade for other things so it has to be done at some point. I'd rather not change the programme for a professional engagement though. It doesn't look very, well, professional lol. But then again neither does leaving it too late to learn the pieces :P.

My recommendation would be to continue making your best effort at learning Chopin's 4th ballade for the November recital. As a safety measure, determine the latest point (e.g. early November?) when it would still be feasible to change the program without too much negative fallout. Have a back-up piece that you already play well (perhaps another comparable work by Chopin such as another ballade, scherzo, Fantaisie in F minor, Polonaise-Fantasie, etc). in good shape in case the 4th ballade does not go as well as hoped. A few days before the deadline, make your best judgement on whether to play the 4th ballade or the other piece. You can play both pieces in front of other pianists whose views you trust to get feedback to help you make your decision.

Nope, I have no such piece. The recital is 50 minutes long and uses up everything I have at the moment. If I were to change it for something comparable I would be in the same situation as I would still have to learn a new piece.

If I may dare propose something: Why does all the pieces have to be AMAZING and MONUMENTALLY stunning, difficult and contain the WOW factor? Just got for a couple of easier works. Not everything has to be at the standard of a Chopin Ballad I think...

Mark_C
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Registered: 11/11/09
Posts: 20004
Loc: New York

Nice last two posts, but I think we all get the feeling he's not going to be too interested in stuff like that. He's clearly determined to do the ballade.

My main concern is that he thinks it's "not that hard," supported by "a lot of" people who've said it isn't, which is just bull, even if his lot of people really did say it. And it's not real good to go on bull.

Okay, first of all I never said anything about what I personally think about the difficulty of this piece. All I did was point out that your statement that it is 'considered by all' to be the most difficult is not entirely true because I know of people who know what they're talking about who disagree. I never said whether or not I agree with them or disagree with you. I haven't learned it yet so I couldn't say how difficult it is. Secondly, the rest of my 50 minute programme is quite easy, so I could hardly be accused of favouring difficult pieces just for the sake of it.

Mark_C
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Registered: 11/11/09
Posts: 20004
Loc: New York

Originally Posted By: debrucey

Okay, first of all I never said anything about what I personally think about the difficulty of this piece. All I did was point out that your statement that it is 'considered by all' to be the most difficult is not entirely true because I know of people who know what they're talking about who disagree. I never said whether or not I agree with them or disagree with you. I haven't learned it yet so I couldn't say how difficult it is....

In that case, please accept our help on this: Those people, however many or few of them there may be, are in a tiny minority, and more importantly, they're simply wrong.

Take my word.

Perhaps they're talking just about getting the notes, or worse yet, sort of getting the notes, and in either of those cases, they're really wrong, because they're missing the point of the piece, which presumably you don't want to do.

They're wrong. They're not worth referencing on something like this, because it will only mislead you.

Quote:

I feel we've got somewhat sidetracked. The whole point of this thread was to hear interesting stories of how other people have coped under self imposed pressure.

It's not unusual for the main question within something to be different than what the person thought, and we see it here a lot.

pianoloverus
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Originally Posted By: Mark_C

Originally Posted By: pianoloverus

Debrucey's requesting that his thread discuss what would be helpful to him....

EXACTLY.

Thank you very much.

Helpful to him assuming he's going to play the Ballade. He just said that a few posts ago. He specifically said the thread had veered in a direction he didn't feel was useful or related to his first post.

Damon
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Registered: 09/22/06
Posts: 6356
Loc: St. Louis area

Originally Posted By: Mark_C

Originally Posted By: pianoloverus

Debrucey's requesting that his thread discuss what would be helpful to him....

EXACTLY.

Thank you very much.

I don't recall Debrucey ever asking for help. Maybe you can quote that part. Two months is a good amount of time if you have the time. Not a lot a time if you have a 9-5 job besides. Everything he has posted sounds pretty damn good so I think his judgement is probably pretty damn good also. If he screws up, that's a lesson learned too. I see little downside to digging into the ballade.

By the way, would you agree that there's any correctness in believing that the piece is "not that hard"?

I NEVER said that I or anyone else thought the piece was 'not that hard'. The phrase I used was 'not as difficult as people think'. Neither did I say that I necessarily believed what they said. Please make more of an effort to understand what people have said before attempting to repudiate them.

Also, Damon is right. I never asked for help. I wanted to hear similar stories from other people and have a discussion about how we work on a piece when the deadline is closer than we'd like. I think that's quite an interesting topic.

Mark_C
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Registered: 11/11/09
Posts: 20004
Loc: New York

If someone has a basic misunderstanding of something -- and he does -- that's worth noting. If he resists the correct input, and if you care about it (and more so perhaps, if you find the misunderstanding offensive, which I do -- on behalf of music and on behalf of Chopin) then you might try again.

Sorry, but I don't believe that you think there's much sense in feeling that this piece might be "not that hard," within any idea of the phrase. I think you're arguing it just because of who it is who's talking about it.

Debrucey: You're obviously determined. But, one more piece of advice: Don't let yourself say to too many people that you think the piece might not be that hard. It won't make a real good impression.

edit: Debrucey, just saw your last post.Everything I've said applies absolutely equally to 'Not as difficult as people think.'Trust me. (Even though I know you won't!)